Daily Recap — October 3

.

.

OFFICERS DOWN

.

.

Seven police officers were shot today in Florence, SC.

Three deputies were shot and city police responded to the scene where four additional officers were wounded, one fatally. A 2-hour standoff ensued as the suspect was barricaded inside with children. The suspect is in custody, but details weren’t immediately released on how the standoff ended.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said special agents are assisting in the incident.

Authorities said the shooting took place in Vintage Place, an upscale neighborhood in the western part of the city. Florence is about 70 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach. It’s a city I drive through every time I visit my hometown. It’s home to roughly 37,000 people, sitting at the convergence of Interstates 95 and 20. It’s the largest region known as the Pee Dee, an area recently affected by heavy flooding in the wake of Hurricane Florence.

.

During an emotional press conference, officials said they were attempting to serve a search warrant when a suspect opened fire from within a residence.

PDT took to Twitter shortly after the evening press conference to say “we are forever grateful for what our law enforcement officers do 24/7/365.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster posted on Twitter that today’s incident is “simply devastating” and called out the “selfless acts of bravery from the men and women in law enforcement.”

.

We don’t yet have the name of the suspect or the officers involved. We also don’t know the condition of the officers who have been hospitalized.

Please pray for that family who won’t see their husband, father, son and/or brother come home tonight. So many of us take our loved ones for granted. First responders don’t have that luxury.

RIP Sir, you will not be forgotten. God please protect his brothers in arms.

.

.

.

.

.

IRAN CALLED OUT ONCE MORE

.

.

The Trump administration has made it clear that they don’t recognize international courts, but the world apparently didn’t hear them well enough. Maybe they can hear us now.

The US is officially terminating a 1955 treaty with Iran after an international court issued a ruling based on the treaty this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced today.

“I’m announcing that the United States is terminating the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran,” Pompeo said at a press briefing. “This is a decision frankly that is 39 years overdue.”

Frankly, he’s correct.

.

.Pompeo’s announcement came hours after the globalist International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nation’s highest court, ordered the US to lift some sanctions against Iran that affect imports of humanitarian goods and products.

Iran had brought the complaint to the court, sometimes called the World Court, based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity, a pre-Iranian Revolution accord that regulates and promotes economic and consular ties between our two countries.

Tehran charged that PDT’s decision to withdraw from the Iran Deal and reimpose sanctions violated the decades-old treaty.

In a preliminary ruling, the court said the US must “remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from” sanctions that affect humanitarian goods and services and services that affect civilian aviation safety. U.S. assurances that sanctions won’t hurt humanitarian aid “were not adequate,” the court said.

By limiting the order to humanitarian aid and civil aviation, the ruling did not go as far as Iran requested. Still, it’s seen a victory for Tehran, but not by Pompeo.

Pompeo said that while the US is “disappointed the court failed to recognize it has no jurisdiction,” he framed the ruling as a defeat for Iran.

“Iran is abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes, and their case, as you can see from the decision, lacked merit,” he said. “Given Iran’s history of terrorism, ballistic missile activity and other malign activity, Iran’s claims under the treaty are absurd.

“The court’s ruling today is a defeat for Iran. It rightly rejected all of Iran’s baseless requests. The court denied Iran’s attempt to secure broad measures to interfere with U.S. sanctions and rightly noted Iran’s history of noncompliance with its international obligations under the treaty of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.”

Asked about the potential fallout of terminating the treaty, Pompeo said “we’ll see what the practical fallout is.”

“The Iranians have been ignoring it for an awfully long time,” Pompeo said. “We ought to have pulled out of it decades ago. Today marked a useful point with the decision that was made this morning from the ICJ. This marked a useful point for us to demonstrate the absolute absurdity of the Treaty of Amity between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He also said the US “has been clear” that existing sanctions exceptions for humanitarian aid and civil aviation safety “will remain.”

Asked about the court’s ruling that those assurances are inadequate, Pompeo reiterated that the United States “has been very clear.”

“We will continue to make sure that we are providing humanitarian assistance in a way that delivers for the people we have spoken very clearly about, the Iranian people,” he said, adding that Tehran was “squandering” its money instead providing aid to its own people.

.

.

At a White House briefing later in the day, national security adviser Mustache John Bolton announced the US is also withdrawing from the optional dispute resolution process to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

.

Bolton said that decision was made in connection with a case brought by the “so-called State of Palestine” over PDT’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The US will still participate in the underlying Vienna Convention, he added.

.

Bolton cast the decisions on the Vienna Convention and the Iran treaty as in line with his earlier vow not to cooperate with the International Criminal Court.

.

“This really has less to do with Iran and the Palestinians than with the continued, consistent policy of the United States to reject the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, which we think is politicized and ineffective,” he said. “It relates obviously in part to our views on the International Criminal Court and to the nature of so-called purported international courts to be able to bind the United States.”

.

The Fake News reporters present didn’t like one bit that Bolton used the phrase, “so-called State of Palestine,” at which he told them to pound sand because that’s exactly what it is. There is no State called Palestine.

.

Bolton then proceeded to make me very happy by doing something I’ve been wanting for over a decade: calling out Iran for their actions in Iraq..

Last week, Pompeo ordered the closure of the US consulate in Basrah, Iraq, alleging the militias under the direction of Iran are targeting the consulate.

Today, Pompeo said U.S. intelligence “is solid” that Iran is the origin of attacks on the mission in Basrah and the US Embassy in Baghdad, without elaborating on the intelligence of course.

“We can see the hand of Ayatollah and his henchmen supporting these attacks on the United States,” he said. “These latest destabilizing acts in Iraq are attempts by the Iranian regime to push back on our efforts to constrain its malign behavior.”

.

.

.

BIG PICTURE:

.

Iran is throwing a hissy fit for a couple reasons. First, there’s the general fact that PDT is taking their garbage, which is surely frustrating to a regime that has become used to getting away with literal murder at every turn.

Then, there’s the fact that the Trump administration is preparing to reimpose the rest of the sanctions that were lifted as part of the Iran Deal. The administration set a Nov. 4 deadline to reimpose those sanctions, most notably on oil sales, after PDT withdrew from the accord in May.

Pompeo said Iran is “clearly” worried about the U.S. pressure campaign against Iran following the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, and he’s right.

“Clearly, they see our comprehensive pressure campaign as serious and succeeding,” he said. “And we must be prepared for them to continue their attempts to hit back, especially after our full sanctions are reimposed on the fourth of November.”

As for our overall approach on Iran, Bolton reiterated today that US policy “is not regime change, but we do expect substantial change in their behavior.”

As to the treaty we just ducked out of, it’s unlikely to have any practical effect, given that we already lack diplomatic relations with Iran. But coupled with harsher rhetoric on allegations of Iranian threats to the US in Iraq, today’s announcement follows the pattern of the Trump administration upping its pressure since leaving the Iran Deal and making it known that a new sheriff is in town, and he’s not going to sit back as some Islamist regime threatens to wipe us and Israel off the map.

Good for you, Mr. President. Never back down.

.

.

.

.

.

TODAY IN KAVANAUGH

.

.

Welp, it looks like we may finally be winding down.

Senators are being told that they will get to review the results of the latest FBI background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh tomorrow, but only one copy is being made available to senators under restricted conditions.

Senate Dim Whip Dick Turban, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said that preparations are indeed being made to review the report on Thursday.

.

Republicans are putting strict limits on the viewing.

Only one copy is being made available to senators, and each party will take turns viewing it in one-hour increments, Durbin said.

“Get this — one copy! For the United States Senate,” he said. “That’s what we were told. And we were also that we would be given one hour for the Dems, one hour for the Republicans. Alternating.”

“We tried to reserve some time to read it. That is ridiculous,” he said. “One copy?!”

“Bizarre, it doesn’t make any sense,” he added.

It’s actually not uncommon at all. Investigative information is sensitive and classified, and thus is viewed in a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility, or SCIF. The report must be maintained inside the SCIF. They don’t typically make a hundred copies of classified reports. It cuts down significantly on leaking.

.

Judiciary Committee Republicans yesterday tweeted out a 2009 memo of understanding stating that photocopying or other reproduction of the FBI background reports is prohibited.

It also states that notes and memoranda derived from the contents of the FBI background investigation reports may be made and shall be destroyed or secured in the same manner as the reports themselves.

.

The one downside is time consumption. If all 100 senators decide to review the document and it takes each senator 30 minutes to peruse the document, it could take 50 hours for the entire chamber to examine it. And we all know Dims will milk every second humanly possible.

.

As for the path forward, Turtle has already filed cloture. That means we could have a vote by Saturday, assuming the world doesn’t blow up between now and then. And by world blowing up, I mean Jeff Flake or the abortion twins raising a stink about something or another.

There is a lot of optimism that BK will get confirmed but no one knows where Collins, Murkowski, Flake, Manchin or Heitkamp stand at the moment. And even if we did it wouldn’t mean much, seeing as how their minds change every 5 minutes.

Hang in there, Trumpers. We’re almost at the end.

.

.

.

.

.

JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

.

.

Our political counterparts will always find something to complain about, but one thing is inarguable: the economy loves Donald J. Trump.

The so-called experts missed the mark again for September, as the latest jobs report shows no signs of economic slowdown anytime soon. Let’s dig into the good news.

.

The numbers:

.

Private-sector employment soared in September, as employers added 230,000 friggin jobs, yo. This is the highest hiring rate since February. The gain was well above forecasts from economic nerds polled by Econoday, who had expected on average an increase of 179,000. August’s gain was upwardly revised to show 168,000 growth instead of a previously estimated 163,000.

The report showed that small firms added 56,000 jobs in September, medium-size businesses added 99,000 to large companies added 75,000.

Economists polled by MarketWatch expect the Labor Department’s nonfarm payroll jobs rose 168,000 in September, down from 201,000 in August. The unemployment rate is expected to lower to 3.8% from 3.9% in August. That would match the 18-year low hit in May.

The ‘experts’ missed this one almost as bad as they missed the last election.

.

.

Big Picture:

.

Economists use data to get a feeling for the Labor Department’s employment report, which will be released Friday and covers government jobs in addition to the private sector. This month’s gain is well above estimates of the government’s data according to the most comprehensive polls of economists.

The labor market has been on fire this year, with job gains averaging 207,000 a month over the first 8 months of the year.

The impact from Hurricane Florence isn’t felt much in this report because everyone who is on a payroll is counted, whether they worked or not.

The stock market is on fire.

The unemployment line is really short.

Jobs are all over this place.

The liberal tears are flowing.

Get your mug.

.

.

.

.

.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

.

.

Last week, one of our coochie-capped friends decided to try their hand at “doxing.”

For those unfamiliar, doxing is the practice of digging up and releasing personal information on someone. Private addresses, phone numbers, emails or maybe even embarrassing info that had been kept out of of public view are all potential targets for wannabe spooks and hackers.

One such wannabe was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police today for allegedly doxing one or more GOP senators by posting their private information online.

According to a press release, the suspect, 27-year-old Jackson Cosko of Washington, D.C., has been charged with publicizing restricted personal information, witness tampering, second-degree burglary, threatening interstate communications, unauthorized use of a government computer, identity theft, and unlawful entry.

The Capitol Police said an investigation is ongoing.

.

Reports emerged last week that someone from within the House of Representatives had posted the home addresses and personal cell phone numbers of Sens. Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham on Wikipedia.

The anonymous Wikipedia edits were made as the three senators questioned Judge Kavanaugh during his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday. These specific edits are believed to have been posted at the exact moment Judge Kavanaugh was taking off his belt and whoopin’ Dims’ asses on national television.

The edits were posted by the @congressedits, a Twitter account which automatically tweets edits made to Wikipedia pages from Capitol Hill computers. The Twitter account was suspended for posting personal information.

Rumors circulated online that the IP address behind the edits came from the office of Rep. Maxine “Crayon” Waters, though the California congresswoman later said the Capitol Police and a tech specialist determined the “IP address in question does not belong to my office or anyone on my staff.”

When asked what an IP address was, Waters responded, “Dat means ‘I Party,’ right?” to uproarious laughter from her staff before snacking on her favorite crayon, Wild Fuschia.

.

My heart goes out to the unfortunate Mr. Cosko. I’ve been lucky enough to have the private information of my political foes fall into my lap on several occasions, at which point I posted it online to ensure the info was correct so I know to go after whatever unsavory character was putting it out.

Doxing is bad, kids.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Donations

Hi everyone, if you enjoyed this article and feel that I’ve earned a tip, I would greatly appreciate any help you can give. If you would like to give more than $1, simply change the number in the box to multiply the donation. If not, I still love you and keep up the good fight!